Very interesting. My grandfather refused to teach me beyond addition and subtraction (when I was 5 yo or so) because he was afraid it will be too boring in the school.

Raising self-esteem and self-confidence is indeed more important. Boys are a bit different (i am not having first hand experience though), they are into competitions naturally. Growth mindset is good tool to overcome failures and increase self-esteem/confidence. Unfortunately, I understood it too late myself because I did not have adequate challenges. It never occurred to me to be average in something I care about… And for the rest I do not care to be below average or whatever.

While we are not talking only about intellectual abilities here (those are easy to measure and stop bothering about), it is really sad that education does not care about bright pupils enough.